Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Empty belly: Kids seek stale food from trains

Empty belly: Kids seek stale food from trains

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Jan 15, 2014   modified Modified on Jan 15, 2014
-The Times of India


VARANASI: In an extremely cold and shivering night, a man with torn clothes was eating something picked up from a dustbin at platform number 4 of Charbagh railway station of Lucknow. Some passenger may have thrown the leftover eatable.

But, finding it insufficient to satiate his hunger the man started looking for some more stuff in other dustbins at the platform. When this correspondent tried to interact with him he went away giving a sarcastic look. Definitely, he was a beggar like many others begging at railway stations and other place of public gathering.

It was not the alone case of the railway station of the state capital, but beggars and street children could also be seen running for leftover food at other places. An LLB student of the Law School, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Saurabh Tiwari, in this research-cum-project work on street children around the railway stations found that at Mughalsarai junction these children eagerly wait for Rajdhani Express trains to collect stale food provided by the pantries.

"During my project work I came to know that these children wait for Rajdhani Express trains mostly passing through the station at night to take the stale food thrown by the pantries," said Tiwari. According to him, there are over 400 such children both girls and boys loitering around the Mughalsarai railway station of East Central Railway (ECR).

Norman Ernest Borlaug, an American biologist, humanitarian and Nobel laureate who has been called the father of the Green Revolution, had said: "Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world." The National Food Security Act, 2013 is also there in the country to provide for food and nutritional security in human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices to people to live a life with dignity. But, hunger is still prevailing in the country.

According to UN World Food Programme report, despite reporting GDP growth of over 6% even during the global economic downturn, over 42% of India's 1.17 billion people live on less than $1.25 per day. Nutritional indicators are extremely low and India is home to over 20% of the world's undernourished population. Despite significant economic progress in the past decade, India is home to about 25% of the world's hungry poor. Although the country grows enough food for its people, pockets of hunger remain. According to government figures, around 43% of children under the age of five years are malnourished and more than half of all pregnancy women aged between 15 and 49 years suffer from anaemia. Stark inter-state disparities exist, with some states better off on all social indicators than the others. The states that suffer from hunger and malnutrition the most are Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Beggary is considered to be a product of hunger. Varanasi, one of the cities of religious and tourism importance, also has beggars in large numbers, though there is no authentic data about their numbers. One can see beggars at ghats, near temples and railway stations.

The city also had a centre for beggars on Maqbool Alam Road that could accommodate 50 beggars. It was shifted to Ashapur area and later it was closed. Presently, there is no home for beggars in the city. But the website of the social welfare department of UP still claims about beggars home in Varanasi. To restrict beggary, the UP Prohibition of Begging Act had come into force in 1975.

The website says, "Under this Act, the beggar homes are being operated in tourism/pilgrimage places and other main cities of the state. These beggar homes are being operated in Varanasi, Mathura, Agra, Faizabad, Allahabad, Lucknow and Kanpur." Despite repeated attempts, the district social welfare officer did not respond to the phone call or the office staff received the call.

To combat the problem of beggary, a scheme for beggary prevention was formulated and introduced during 1992-93 for the care, treatment and rehabilitation of beggars by the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment. Its primary objectives were to provide facilities for technical education and vocational training of beggars, encourage them to take up productive works so that they can be reintegrated into the society. To prevent beggary, centres for vocational training, treatment and rehabilitation of beggars are


The Times of India, 14 January, 2014, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/Empty-belly-Kids-seek-stale-food-from-trains/articleshow/28768023.cms


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close